


The Gun House

by pat_o_cake



Category: IAMX (Band)
Genre: Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 05:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15574452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pat_o_cake/pseuds/pat_o_cake
Summary: Post-USA trip CeeCee embraces the American dream with results. This fic takes place in the far distant future, somewhere in mid-western USA.





	The Gun House

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: When I do this, the word cruel begins to flash in my mind.

The air was particularly dry that morning as the courier turned his truck off the main road and down towards what was locally known as ‘The Gun House’; a tiny homestead several miles away from the nearest town and more than a diversion from any other deliveries on the manifest. Dust kicked up, dulling the mid-morning light and Randy wound up the window to keep out the choking motes.

He hated this run.

It wasn’t so much that this delivery was off the beaten track and lacking in a welcome tip; it was more that the person to whom he was delivering the heavy crates – sometimes twice a month, made him feel remarkably uncomfortable. He rounded a twist in the road and the porch of the house came into view revealing a shabby, colonial style veranda as a first impression White paint flecked from the balustrades and the shutters flapped noiselessly in the lazy breeze whilst the rest of the single-story building sulked behind. Randy pulled as close as he could the house, knowing full well that he’d not receive any help unloading the crates. Exiting the cab and slamming the door behind him, he stepped out and walked to the rear of his vehicle, catching a glimpse of the warning sign that swayed on rusted hinges.

“BEWARE OF PIG”.

In any other circumstance, he’d have laughed, but Randy had heard the squeals and growls on previous visits and knew that whatever made the guttural sounds in the house sounded dangerous. Pig or not, he wanted be out of here as quickly as possible.

After hoisting the wooden crate from the van, he lugged it up the creaking steps and gave the door a tap. Seconds passed before the porch door rasped open. Appearing out of the humid gloom, an obtusely large, alabaster skinned figure draped in water-stained black satin and wearing round black sunglasses peered out. He remained motionless, long, flat hair hanging limp and black beneath a void-coloured broad-rimmed hat. His glasses reflected Randy’s expression of unease. Randy cleared his throat.

“Mister Corner, I have another delivery for you” he said, picking through his manifest sheet in an effort to look in a hurry. “If you could just sign here,…”

“AH, THANK YOU MY GOOD MAN” replied Mr Corner, dipping his glasses slightly. Randy could never place his accent. It sounded mid-Atlantic, but with a hint of what he could only describe as ‘film-Nazi’. “THANK YOU FOR YOUR HASTE, I HAVE GREAT NEED OF THIS PARTICULAR ITEM. BUT IF YOU PLEASE, BRING IT THROUGH TO MY PARLOUR”. Without waiting for an answer, Mr Corner grinned a sickly smile and whisked into the house, with a speed that surprised Randy. He could never recall a person of Mr Corner’s size moving so rapidly; a jagged staccato sway that reminded him of badly edited b-movies.

Randy sighed reluctantly and heaved the crate into his arms. It wasn’t overly large, but whatever it contained was heavy and dense. Stepping into the semi-gloom, he was shocked to see way Mr Corner had decorated. The hallway was covered in guns, and rifles, arranged fastidiously in size and shape. Interspersed between the displays were multiple paintings of weeping Elvis’s, Catholic emblemata, and signed Eval Kneival photos.

“Quite a place you got here Mr Corner” said Randy, attempting to ease the awkwardness of the situation as the bloated form of the owner strode further into the gloom of the house. Mr Corner stopped and waved his right hand with a flourish. “ONE TRIES MY KINDER. ART IS PERMANANCE IN A WORLD OF FLEETING FLESH. PLEASE PLACE THE PACKAGE HERE.” Randy followed the sweeping mass of black into what he assumed was the lounge of the house. His feet fell into a deep carpet as he was led in. The room itself was swathed in darkness, the air heavy and dense with the cloying scent of sickly-sweet incense; the only light provided by several clusters of wax laden, wine-bottle mounted candles. Randy’s eyes became accustomed to the twilight in increments. Firstly he made out the outlines of more firearms and pictures hung with filed precision, then the furniture resolved itself – huge and baroque, its polished edges glinting off shy razors of light creeping in.

“JUST THERE WILL BE FINE”.

Randy placed the crate down onto a sideboard and prepared the manifest. Before he could ask Mr Corner to sign for the item, Mr Corner interrupted him.

“I WISH TO INSPECT THE GOOD S FIRST. PLEASE, HELP YOURSELF TO A CHEESEBURGER WHILST I DO SO,..”

Randy had failed to notice a piled plateful of burgers behind him, sagging weightily in their greaseproof sleeves.

“ONLY ONE THOUGH – DON’T BE GREEDY”.

Randy complied, more out of fear than politeness. Mr Corner had already opened the wooden crate with supernatural speed without the leverage of a crowbar, manoeuvring about his prize like an speeded-up automaton. The burger was cold and felt flaccid, the thin stale bun doing very little to contain the cooled meat juices. “Thanks Mr Corner, I’ll save it for my lunch” stammered Randy. “PLEASE, CALL ME MR CHRISTOPHER, THINK NOTHING OF IT”.

With a theatrical twist, Mr Corner produced his delivery. For the briefest moment, he held the object close to his chest as if caressing a small child. “OH AREN’T YOU MAGNIFCENT” he whispered, before allowing his right arm to languidly extend, the object gripped tightly and pointing at Randy. “THE AMERICAN DREAM MADE METAL MY FRIEND”. Randy was now filled with an urgent desire to retreat as fast as he could from Mr Corner’s house, but was held in place by the shock of having a large pistol pointed directly at his face. Mr Corner smiled and began to speak.

“A COLT 45, THE FRONTIER SIX-SHOOTER. GOD MADE MAN, THEN SAM COLT MADE HIM EQUAL. WITNESS MEIN KINDER, THE GREAT LEVELLER, THE MOST PRISTINE INSTRUMENT OF BINARY ARBITRATION.”

There was an explosion of sound as the gun went off. Empty wine bottles annihilated as shards of glass and hot wax flew into Randy’s back as the pistol discharged a single bullet into the gloom directly behind him. A slow flame from a surviving wick caught on the carpet and began to spread in the pile, banishing the shadows. The crawling fire illuminated the figure of Mr Corner, who now gleefully maniacal began to pull various armaments and pictures from the walls.

“RUN AND TELL THEM. MORTALITY IS BUT A FRAME! I SEE THE CANVAS AND IT IS FIRE AND SEX AND WHISPERS AND MUSIC AND TEARS AND DEATH”.

Fraught with confusion Randy staggered backwards and fell, slivers of glass piercing his palms like kitten’s teeth in the thick carpet. Mr Corner swirled about, his long cape billowing and blooming, fanning the hungry flames that skittered from the floor to the walls. Pulling his palms close to his chest, Randy ran gasping for the door, almost reaching the porch before he was knocked off his feet by a charging, solid mass that plunged him into the hallway wall. Struggling for breath and seeing stars, Randy just about made out the shape of a massive black pig, running towards the flames.

“AH, COME NOW CHARLAMAGNE, WE SHALL PAINT THIS WORLD A NEW COLOUR TOGETHER.”

The pig trotted into the blaze and sat at the foot of his master. Surrounded by the now roaring flames, Mr Corner calmly stroked its massive head, the pig crooning upward appreciatively. With fire reflecting off his glasses, Mr Corner addressed the near unconscious, wheezing Randy who was attempting to crawl backwards on his elbows.

“YOU SHOULD LEAVE NOW, WHILST YOU STILL CAN. I AM ABOUT TO BEAM THE ENTIRE HOUSE BACK TO THE PLANET OF TRANSEXUAL, IN THE GALAXY OF TRANSYLVANIA.”

With that, Mr Corner and Charlemagne disappeared through the flames and deeper into the house whilst Randy staggered blindly, barging his way through the blessed exit and into the parched morning air. After clearing a dozen or so metres from the house, Randy braved a glimpse across his shoulder. The house was crowned with flames, heat-haze oozing in the air whilst a small cloud of dust kicked up behind a small vehicle heading away from the smouldering building. From what Randy could make out, it seemed to be a mobility scooter towing a tiny trailer with what appeared to be Mr Corner’s porcine pet occupying it. As it meandered into the distance, black silk billowing behind, Randy dropped to his knees and finally lost consciousness.

When he recovered consciousness on that hot, dusty driveway his truck’s wheels had melted from the intensity of the heat generated by the still burning house. Charred paper floated like a dusty halo. When he eventually staggered back to the nearest town, his only firm recollection was of his own reflection cast in small dark glasses and a consuming, roaring swirling melee of sound and fire so bright it seared a new definition of heat and light in his memory.

On cold nights, some say that you can still hear the sound of the fire raging at what used to be the Gun House; that the intensity of the flames burnt a hole into the material of reality itself. Others say that it’s the sound of grunting swine, electronic music and clinking wine bottles that carry on the dry breeze. Once, some intrepid children from the local town dared to camp there years after the blaze and fled, fearing for their lives after being chased by “An impossibly thin foreign shadow”. Whatever it is that permeates the atmosphere of that place now does so alone, stretching out the years on a canvas of fear and folklore.

 

FIN.


End file.
